Guidewires are routinely used in medical procedures where a catheter is introduced into a patient's arteries or veins. In cardiovascular procedures such as angioplasty and valvuloplasty, a guidewire is inserted by a physician into the patient's blood vessel and advanced until the distal end of the guidewire reaches the location to be treated. Once the guidewire is placed, a catheter is slid over the guidewire and advanced until it is positioned with its distal end at the diseased location within the patient.
In certain cases the in-situ catheter may be changed during the cardiovascular procedure. For example, a physician may use several balloon dilatation catheters having balloons of progressively increasing size to unblock a stenosis in the patient's artery. It is important to perform the catheter exchange without moving the position of the guidewire from the location to be treated so that the guidewire can be used to direct the new catheter to the same location.
One method of exchanging catheters is to attach one end of an extension guidewire to the proximal end of the in-situ guidewire and withdraw the catheter over the extension guidewire while leaving the in-situ guidewire in place. A new catheter can then be advanced over the coupled guidewires, and the extension guidewire can be disconnected after the new catheter is placed at the location to be treated within the patient's blood vessel. The two guidewires are typically attached using a female connector on the end of one guidewire and a male connector on the one end of the other guidewire, the interconnection of which can be releasably secured.
With respect to guidewires used in coronary artery catheterization, a major disadvantage with the interfitting connectors is that they have very small diameters, which makes positive alignment of the coupling extremely difficult to see and accomplish under the conditions in which these procedures are performed. Moreover, the length of an extension guidewire is typically in the order of 125 cm., which makes its handling somewhat awkward when a physician or attendant is attempting to align the proximal end of the in-situ guidewire with the end of the extension guidewire. As a result of these difficulties, the procedure of connecting an extension guidewire to an in-situ guidewire is tedious, painstaking, time consuming and has some risk of guidewire movement or improper alignment of the in-line connection involved. All of this adds to the spiralling cost of medical procedures using guidewires and catheters.
Thus, there is a need for a device and method, heretofore unavailable, which provides visual assistance while facilitating the positive alignment of a small diameter guidewire and an extension guidewire, when connecting their ends together.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a device which has a guidewire alignment channel and a magnifying media positioned thereover, for facilitating the end-to-end connection of a small diameter guidewire and an extension guidewire placed therein.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method of connecting a guidewire to a guidewire extension by positioning the end of the guidewire and the end of the extension guidewire in-line to each other in a confined space that contains a magnifying media positioned thereover so that a positive connection of the two wires can be achieved quickly and easily.
It is still another object to provide a device for connecting a guidewire to a guidewire extension that is simple in design and use, and economical to manufacture.
The foregoing objects and advantages of the invention are illustrative of those which can be achieved by the present invention and are not intended to be exhaustive or limiting of the possible advantages which can be realized. Thus, these and other objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the description herein or can be learned from practicing the invention, both as embodied herein or as modified in view of any variations which may be apparent to those skilled in the art. Accordingly, the present invention resides in the novel parts, constructions, arrangements, combinations and improvements herein shown and described.